Winsted police chief takes job as town manager in Watertown

Winchester Police Chief Robert Scannell (right) gives Town Manager Dale Martin (left), members of the Board of Selectmen and others a tour of the police department in February. Scannell was hired as town manager in Watertown in August.
Ryan Flynn — Register Citizen

WINSTED >> Police Chief Robert Scannell will be leaving the Winchester Police Department to take the town manager job in Watertown, where he worked for 20 years as a police officer before coming to Winsted in 2001.

Scannell’s last day in Winsted is technically Oct. 13, but accounting for vacation time, he said Oct. 2 is a more accurate estimate.

“All in all, [working in Winsted] was a good experience for me,” Scannell said. “Certainly it was a growing experience, a learning experience. I learned a lot about public administration and public service through the town and through town managers who have come and gone.”

Scannell spent 13 years with the Winchester Police Department. He was hired in 2001 as the deputy chief and then promoted to chief in September 2010 when former Chief Nicholas Guerriero retired. Previously, he’d moved up the ranks of the Watertown Police Department over a 20 year span, going from patrol officer to detective sergeant to lieutenant. Scannell is a Waterbury native.

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“Public service has always been my interest,” Scannell said. “That’s why I entered law enforcement. This is just another avenue to perform service to the public on a broader scale.”

As has been the case recently in replacing the Finance, Recreation and Public Works Directors, Winsted’s Civil Service Commission will be tasked with choosing an interim chief and Scannell’s eventual successor. Once the applicants have been narrowed down, Town Manager Dale Martin will make the new hire.

“The years that I have worked with Bob, I found him to be a gentleman and very knowledgeable,” Winchester Town Clerk Sheila Sedlack said. “He just came in, took over and I thought did a wonderful job. He’s going to be missed, very much. It is definitely is a loss from Winsted. I think people felt comfortable with him at the helm.”

Scannell’s hiring was approved by the Watertown Town Council Tuesday night.

Louis Razza, Town Councilman in Watertown, said that Scannell was chosen from a pool of 53 candidates. The hiring process dates back to April or earlier, when the council first found out about the pending retirement of current Town Manager Charles Frigon.

“Bob had the credentials, first of all,” Razza said. “He’s a very level-headed person. He worked in town for 20 years. He could see where the weaknesses are and where the best features are for the town. He’s into commercial development.”

In many ways, this is a homecoming for the Winsted chief. He spent two decades working and living in Watertown before accepting the deputy chief position in Winchester and still calls it home.

“I’m very familiar with Watertown. I have a lot of acquaintances and connections to the community,” he said. “I’m very happy to be going back home.”

Working in Winchester, Scannell has had a front row seat to the challenges that leading a town can present. Watching Martin and the slew of Town Managers who proceeded him attempt to sidestep many of the pitfalls of governing a town has taught Scannell some valuable lessons entering his new job.

“The most important thing I’ve learned is that obviously the focus is not on the political arena,” Scannell said. “The focus is on what is best for the community. The Town Manager’s job is to stay apolitical and do what is best for the community and what is in the best interest of the citizens and the taxpayers.”

While he mentioned that there “is a lot of good” in Winsted, Scannell said he wished he had the resources to pursue more work in the areas of community relations, public safety education and community outreach.

“Those things are the first things to go when budgets are restrictive,” Scannell said.

Scannell has had his hands full with the budget. The deputy chief position Scannell previously held has been vacant since his 2010 promotion. In March, Scannell and town officials said they planned to fill that spot.

There are currently 17 sworn officers in Winsted, down from 24 in 2010. Scannell has been working to improve the number of officers in his department over the past year or so. The department was operating at minimum staffing levels last year before bringing new officers on board.

Scannell also led a tour in February for town officials and members of the press of the department’s headquarters in town hall, which are in need of improvements. He worked with the town to set aside money in its Capital Improvement Budget to begin making upgrades, including new paint, ceiling tiles and carpeting until a longer-term improvement plan is put in place

For the first four weeks of his tenure in Watertown, Scannell will shadow Frigon and get a better sense of the lay of the land.

“Certainly with his knowledge and experience, I thought four weeks would be a good amount of time to shadow him to get the ins and outs of his job and the particulars of the job,” Scannell said.